Legal claims defining the scope of protection, as filed with the USPTO.
1. A method for photographing a panoramic image composed of a plurality of pictures, the method comprising the steps of: comparing a current real-time input image with a previous image through a motion estimation mechanism with exposure compensation to recognize movement of a corresponding photographing apparatus; determining a time to photograph each next picture by determining whether the recognized movement in a photography direction reaches a preset threshold value; and photographing each next picture by manual or automatic operation at the determined time; wherein in the motion estimation mechanism with the exposure compensation comprises the steps of: compensating pixels of each image block within compared frames in accordance with an average value of the image block, and determining a motion vector between matching image blocks using error information of respective compared pixels between image blocks within compared frames.
2. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the error information comprises SAD (Sum of Absolute Difference) or SSD (Sum of Squared Difference), which is obtained by modified SAD E ′ ( m , n ) = ∑ x , y ∈ block I 1 ( x , y ) - I _ 1 - ( I 2 ( x + m , y + n ) - I _ 2 ( m , n ) ) modified SSD E ( m , n ) = ∑ x , y ∈ block { I 1 ( x , y ) - I _ 1 - ( I 2 ( x + m , y + n ) - I _ 2 ( m , n ) ) } 2 , wherein I 1 and I 2 indicate pixel values of positions corresponding to x, y and x+m, y+n on the image blocks within a previous frame and a current frame, respectively, and Ī 1 and Ī 2 indicate average values of pixels corresponding to blocks within the previous frame and the current frame, respectively.
3. The method as claimed in claim 2 , wherein in obtaining the average values of the pixels, an integral image is prepared with regard to the current frame, and then, an average value of pixels with regard to each image block is obtained using the integral image.
4. The method as claimed in claim 2 , wherein the pixel values comprise luminance or color.
5. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein each of the image blocks is variably set according to information selected from the group consisting of: preview performance, a distance from a subject, and a photography mode.
6. The method as claimed in claim 5 , wherein in addition to the image blocks, a search range for searching a matching block is also variably set.
7. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein in determining the motion vector between the image blocks, a single-block search mechanism is used.
8. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein when the motion estimation mechanism is performed on the frames, the frames are projected on a preset panoramic projection space.
9. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein in comparing the frames, some frames are skipped according to a preset value.
10. A method for photographing a panoramic image, in which movement of a photographing apparatus is recognized, the method comprising the steps of: determining matching image blocks between a current real-time input frame and a previous frame; and determining movement of the photographing apparatus by determining a motion vector between the determined matching image blocks, wherein in determining the matching image blocks, pixels of each of the image blocks within respective frames are compensated in accordance with an average value of a corresponding image block, and the motion vector between the matching image blocks is determined by using error information on the compared compensated pixels between the image blocks within the respective frames.
11. The method as claimed in claim 10 , wherein the error information comprises SAD (Sum of Absolute Difference) or SSD (Sum of Squared Difference), which is obtained by modified SAD E ′ ( m , n ) = ∑ x , y ∈ block I 1 ( x , y ) - I _ 1 - ( I 2 ( x + m , y + n ) - I _ 2 ( m , n ) ) modified SSD E ( m , n ) = ∑ x , y ∈ block { I 1 ( x , y ) - I _ 1 - ( I 2 ( x + m , y + n ) - I _ 2 ( m , n ) ) } 2 , wherein I 1 and I 2 indicate pixel values of positions corresponding to x, y and x+m, y+n on the image blocks within a previous frame and a current frame, respectively and Ī 1 and Ī 2 indicate average values of pixels corresponding to blocks within the previous frame and the current frame, respectively.
12. The method as claimed in claim 10 , wherein in obtaining the average values of the pixels, an integral image is prepared with regard to the current frame, and an average value of pixels with regard to each image block is obtained by using the integral image.
13. The method as claimed in claim 10 , wherein the pixel values comprise luminance or color.
14. The method as claimed in claim 10 , wherein in determining the motion vector between the image blocks, a single-block search mechanism is used.
15. The method as claimed in claim 10 , wherein each of the image blocks and a search range for searching a matching block are both variably set according to information selected from the group consisting of: preview performance, a distance from a subject, and a photography mode.
16. The method as claimed in claim 10 , wherein when a motion estimation mechanism is performed on the frames, the frames are previously projected on a preset panoramic projection space.
17. The method as claimed in claim 10 , wherein in comparing the frames, some frames are skipped according to a preset value.
18. An apparatus for photographing a panoramic image composed of a plurality of pictures, the apparatus comprising: a processor in communication with a memory, the memory containing code which when accessed by said processor causes said processor to execute the steps of: comparing a current real-time input image with a previous image through a motion estimation mechanism with exposure compensation to recognize movement of a corresponding photographing apparatus; determining a time to photograph each next picture by determining whether the recognized movement in a photography direction reaches a preset threshold value; and photographing each next picture by manual or automatic operation at the determined time; wherein in the motion estimation mechanism with the exposure compensation compensates pixels of each image block within compared frames in accordance with an average value of the image block, and determines a motion vector between matching image blocks using error information of respective compared pixels between image blocks within corn eared frames.
Unknown
October 2, 2012
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